Our thoughts:

First of all, we LOVE mead. Like, would keep our own bees so we could make our own mead kind-of-love.

Mead comes in a wider variety than you might expect. All are honey-based, but that’s usually where the similarities end. Some meads are sweet and thick, like after dinner liquors; others are drier and spicier. Some meads, although still honey based, acquire their primary flavors from fermented fruits, or the casks in which they are aged. As such, you can find meads flavored with apples, pears, peaches, ginger root, whiskey casks, or rum casks.

Mead can be served any time of day, on its own, or with a meal. Most meads are best served at room temperature, but some of the sweeter, lighter varieties are also nice slightly chilled.

Our Recommendations:

Lurgashall English Mead is an excellent introduction to the beverage. It has a simple sweet honey flavor that is full bodied and easy to enjoy. Lurgashall’s other meads are also very good and easy to for a beginner. Typically, they cost around $21 a bottle in the US, and 8-10 pounds in the UK.

One of our personal favorites is Lurgashall Tower of London, which is aged in scotch barrels. The taste starts with spiced honey, has a hint of the best scotch flavors, then finishes with straight honey.

If you are feeling more adventurous consider anything by Dansk, especially their Viking Blood. This is a rich, serious, hearty mead that scotch drinkers will like. Another favorite is The GI. Dansk Mjod, which has a lovely ginger flavor. These are high quality and cost around $25.

A word to the wise where fruity meads are concerned: Some, especially the cheap ones, are reminiscent of cough syrup — too rich, and too sweet. The Redstone brand is fairly safe, although you are probably safest getting a straight honey mead that almost everyone will love. That said, I recently had a Honey Garden blueberry mead that was out of this world. Also, B. Nektar’s Wildberry mead is what humans taste like to vampires: intoxicatingly delicious.

Iqhilika is a South African mead that comes in bizarre flavors, such as coffee and fig. Again, interesting to try, but probably too big a risk for newcomers to the world of mead.

Overall, I highly recommend the Viking Blood, the Lurgashall, and the Honey Garden/B. Nektar if you are opting for something fruitier.

AVOID Chaucer’s mead; it’s horrible. Shame, because it has a great name and a pretty label. Unfortunately, Chaucer’s is the mead your local liquor store is most likely to carry. Don’t buy it, even if it is your only option.

For what it’s worth, Oliver Winery is a small winery in southern Indiana. I live a few miles away, but I’d be surprised if it would be found much outside of the Illinois/Indiana/Ohio/Kentucky area.

However, while it’s decent, I’d consider it pretty midling compared to many others. Certainly a better option than Chaucer’s, but most of the others you mention would be better. To me, Camelot Mead tastes pretty strongly like a cheaper white wine with some strong sweet notes rather than a true mead.

I live in Ohio, and I’ve tried Olivers mead. I compared it to the mead I had from a local winery. Valley Vineyards in morrow ohio makes a delicious mead. I prefer the valley vineyards to Olivers, which I thought was a bit too bitter and somewhat watered down.

my boyfriend brewed (is that the right word?) his own mead 9 months ago…just in time to pop open a bottle for the Game of Thrones premier! I watched him make the whole thing with common grocery store supplies. It was very cheap…most expensive item was the honey! I’ll let you guys know how it turned out. =)

Brilliant! We’ve had a fair amount of home-brewed mead, and it can be quite lovely. We hope to make a batch ourselves and write about the experience, so we will definitely look forward to hearing how yours turned out!

The best mead recipe I’ve ever tried is Barkshack Ginger Mead, from Charlie Papazian’s book, The Joy of Homebrewing.

Ingredients: honey, champagne yeast, yeast food (honey won’t support yeast by itself), a bit of winemaker’s acid blend, ginger and water. Three months in the secondary, a year in the bottle, then heaven in a glass! If you have a seduction in mind, plan ahead and brew up some of this “éplucheur de culotte” – or kilt-lifter, if that’s your goal.

I was so fed up with our tiny selection here in Utah (pretty much only Chaucer’s) that we finally started making out own in small, 1 gallon batches. I have a jug of pomegranate berry fermenting right now & can’t wait to try it! I’ve just recently taken up wine making, too, and am excited for that first batch, too :)

We, too, made our own mead due to the lack of options here. I remember trying the mead at Ren Faire (Chaucer’s) and thinking ew, people drink this stuff? But when my boyfriend and his friend made their own: a blackberry and a cherry cinnamon, I was hooked. I especially loved the cherry cinn. Too bad they haven’t made any more and we’re all out… Our local wine store has 2 mead options: Chaucer’s (shudder) and Rabbit’s Foot, which I actually really like. It’s really expensive though, something like $35 for a fairly small bottle.

What I want to know is, how did Chaucer’s get so big when other meads are almost impossible to find? How can we help the non-Chaucer’s meads become as widespread?

I wish I knew! I do ask about mead almost every time I go into a liquor store, even if I’m not shopping for it. I’m surprised how many small meaderies there are on the east coast that are just sort of tucked away in the country. A quick google search brought up this outdated list, but it might be of use to some: http://www.talisman.com/mead/meadery.html

Fortunately for us, Boston has a wonderful bar with a whole page of mead selections that they rotate. AND you can order flights! If you’re ever in the area, check out Sunset Bar and Grill. Delish!

Prepare to have your world rocked. Sunset Bar and Grill has a whole page of meads in the drinks menu. You can order one of their suggested flights (as a scotch drinker, you might like the European flight), or make your own flight of four meads. If the waitress balks at the idea of a custom flight, insist; it is an option. While you’re there, pop across the street to Blanchard’s Liquors, where you can procure one of a pretty good selection of meads. The other local-ish suggestion is Marty’s. Formerly right on the corner of Harvard and Comm, they have relocated to 675 Washington St. in Newton. Fantastic selection of beers, wines, specialty liquors, and meads.

I tweeted this over the weekend, but just realized that I forgot to post it here: http://www.redstonemeadery.com/ also has some great mead at reasonable prices. And (!) they ship! (At least to the states that allow alcohol to be shipped to them. I’m purposefully not looking at you, UT.)

I looked up what was available for local brands, as I wished to follow your advice and avoid Chaucer’s. I found a local brand (in Wisconsin) that’s reasonably priced called White Winter Winery, which made me think of Winterfell. I ended up getting a bottle of their sweet mead for $11, and while I’m new to mead, I think I could get used to this, provided I get better at removing corks from bottles.

Thanks for the suggestion! White Winter has not only a name appropriate to northern Westeros, but also a tasty looking selection of meads. With sexy names! Sign me up for a bottle of the “Black Harbor”!

I really recommend hemp mead (which is of course without THC). Delicious and fresh aroma.
Nice project and some really tasty recipes. I tried out roman recipes several times and the richness of the spices and flavours is incredible, even if it’s sometimes hard to find all herbs that were common in roman times but are rarer nowadays.

I’ve been making mead in New Orleans for about 5 years now. I never even though to check the store and have never tasted mead other than my own (excepting once at a houston ren fest and it was carbonated… not sure it thats normal or not) so i don’t even know if mine is up to snuff.

I am however fermenting about 30 gallons of strawberry mead right now for my wedding reception in July. I used a localish apiary in acadiana and ponchatoula strawberries from the strawberry festival. I’ve done batches like this before with good results.

So I guess if there is anyone in New Orleans looking to try some post here and let me know. I actually have about a hald liter left from a previous batch lying round.

I live in New Orleans and have slowy developed a love for mead and am trying to find a place to get good mead around here or possibly start brewing my own. Any tips you have or samples would be nice! you can contact me back at my email wicketess@yahoo.com. Thank you again and any information would be appreciated!

We served Bunratty at our wedding reception. I did a taste test of 9 meads and this is the one I thought best for mass appeal. I didn’t like the Lurgashall; I found it too dry. The Iqhilika herbal blossom was interesting. I was amazed by the variety. Chaucer’s wasn’t the worst either. I can’t remember the name, but there was one that was undrinkable.

This looks fantastic, i am so impressed with this site. My Dungeons and Dragons (lots of drinkining such things) group has just started playing a Song of Ice and Fire Role playing game (sanctioned by mr. Martin) and this would be a great addition, Thanks for all your pioneering vision.

I love this sight, I am re-reading the books get ready for Dance and enjoying the show. I told my wife how I wanted to make some of the food, and here it is. I have my own bee’s and am planning on making a batch of mead soon, I will keep you posted.

For fellow Pennsylvanians out there, Mount Hope winery located in Intercourse, PA as well as Manheim, PA on the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fairgrounds offers a delightful selection of meads. And, you can get them shipped to you!

I hate the Vikings Blood, really tastes different from other meads I’ve tried, and not in a good way- to me or my boyfriend (and he likes scotch). But others do seem to love it. I would not suggest this one to people trying mead for the first time.
I think I’ve tried Chaucers and found it to be mediocre, cheap and at least much better than the Vikings Blood which is rather expensive.
Looking forward to trying some of the others you mention and really enjoying your website.

Sorry to hear that you didn’t like Viking’s Blood! We’ve had fairly good success introducing it to friends, although I agree that a basic honey mead would probably be safer. Hope you find another one on the list that you like!

I’m looking to try some different meads but my local liquor stores don’t carry a good selection, pretty much just Oliver Camelot Mead. Can anybody recommend a quality online retailer for mead and cider and such?

I live in Ohio but closer to the Michigan border (like walking distance), and I’ve been buying B. Nektar’s mead since I found them at the Michigan Renaissance Festival and I can find it at the liquor store by my house. They have an orange blossom mead that’s great in summer and a vanilla cinnamon mead that’s absolutely wonderful heated in the winter.

I actually don’t mind Chaucer’s. The trick, I think, is to mull it with spices. Not the spice packet you get with the bottle but a really good quality one like Williams and Sonoma’s mulling spices.

Mead is my go-to beverage, and I’ve sold so many of my friends on it. Interestingly, Im very fond of Chaucer’s, but very much dislike B. Nektar. A pal of mine told me that the very fact of that made him want to go try B. Nektar, and pointed out that every person’s palette is going to have differences. For some top shelf mead, try: http://www.foxhillmead.com/index.php
I have tried everything save their special reserve to date, and love them.

Mmmmm…. Mead. I’ve been promising to brew up a batch for my wife for years now – just haven’t gotten away from making my ciders and beers. Plus it takes forever. So I just get it by the case: Montezuma winery http://www.montezumawinery.com off the I-90 in NY. They have this amazing mead called Tej – the national drink of Ethiopia. It is mellowed with Gesho wood, and boy does it take all the bite out of regular mead. Yum.

Since I made my first batch of mead, most commercially sold variants can’t satisfy me anymore. I have a 50 litre carboy, which serves me great to make 30 litres of mead per batch. That lasts longer than the three months a quick batch takes to make.

I am making my own mead again… I make traditional Finnish mead. Cheap and fast to make, about just 4 days in room temperature. Instead of honey, I use white and brown sugar. :) The first batch will be ready on Saturday, just in time before the next episode of GoT! :D

I live in Rhode Island, and it has been a nightmare to find a good mead. I tried Viking Blood years ago but haven’t had any luck finding it either online or in stores in my state. Are there any stores in Boston that would carry it? I’m going to be up that way next week, and if not, do you know a reliable website where I can purchase it?

There was an article in Imbibe Magazine just last month about a current trend and growing commercialization of mead (riding on the tails of the serious ciders becoming much more prevalent) I can definitely second B. Nektar (was ranked in their top 10 meaderies), but also add Rabbit’s Food in CA (though, they’ve stopped making their dry mead – pout) and if you can get a hold of it, if you can find it PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get Honeymaker out of Maine! Their Dry mead won the gold metal at the 2012 international competition – I am *loving* their stuff – it’s so much higher quality than the crap you see more often (like Chaucer and Carroll)

And their dry mead is a thing of beauty, especially for those who think all mead is just flat, bland tasting, super-sweet, ren-faire style syrup.

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